*

Thursday, November 30, 2006

you ever get half through your day and realize that you completly neglected deodorant of any kind that morning? and then you remember you were all excited because you got back to your pre-holiday weight and that's probably why you forgot. and if you can just not eat two pizzas when you go home this weekend maybe you can take your loss a little further next week. that would be cool. but you still stink today. unfortunately.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

i just had an epiphany. remember a thousand years ago when i wrote about that skirt at the limited that didn't fit and how i was going to totally make that skirt fit. and you know how yesterday i was all "i need nice clothes that fit". yeah, well, i'm going to the land of decent stores again this weekend and i will find things that fit. it's extra good motivation to lay off the ice cream sammiches this week. and maybe try out that new pilates dvd i got. essentially re-commit to the skirt thing and get a nice work outfit out of it. and meet a goal...which hasn't happened on this site very often.

(good thoughts, good karma) she says to herself so as not to be all whiny.

the best part of that plan is that i won't have to haul my ass to bangor this week. i'll only have to haul it to nh at the weekend. that's a blessing in itself. it's hard to get much done when the sun sets at 4. motivation flees with the light and pretty much i spend my nights watching buffy and looking at the 50 excel spreadsheets i have to monitor every facet of my life. isn't my life riveting? i made a household spending graph that really impressed the boyfriend. to the point where he suggested i take up crocheting. because knit one pearl two is a better use of my time.*

i do need a hobby. beyond coupon cutting and filing my receipts in alphabetical order.** so i pulled out my printmaking supplies (which i had packed to move...) and i'm playing around with those a bit. textures mostly. starting at the beginning and hoping it takes me closer to where i want to end up. as with all things i need to learn to appreciate the process and the steps and not just be pissed off that the result isn't what i want it to be.

i know i should be baking and working out recipes for when i might be able to start this business...but i'm saving my enthusiasm for christmas at the moment. especially as i want to fit that skirt. but i am thinking of things to make for the holidays. y'all think dark chocolate cookies with bits of cherry is worth trying? or should i stick with the old favorites? i'm wondering if i use dried if they'll react like raisins and soften up a bit in the cookies. i'll have to give it a test drive and let you know. after i make the perfect print and learn to knit, ofcourse.

*and yes, i know that those are knitting references and not crocheting references. or maybe they are, i have no idea. it's sort of like that quilted northern toilet paper commercial where the cartoon ladies are quilting with knitting needles that makes my sister growl like a rottweiler. **i wish i could put stuff like this on my resume, some employers might find my dedication to the alphabet endearing.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

i have an actual interview. they called me first. first as in before all others. now what the fuck do i wear? the job is a town position, so conservative. i'll have to buy a suit and get it tailored. i've been meaning to and now i have a reason. that's gonna be hard. if the snow stops i'll be a shopping tonight. and i will not have a cow when it doesn't fit me in a few months. i will just take it to the tailor and the angels will sing.

i will not whine. because i finally got a call back. i was starting to think i'd never hear anything positive back and i am half done re-working my resume. i'm still re-working it, i still have some new jobs to send it to. it's nice to have an interview coming up though. i feel that much more positive about sending out more when it's not completely fruitless.

so i'm employable, i've lost one of my new pounds, and i'm overall in a good mood. despite the snow. the snow would be great, if we had electricity set up at the apartment. the 5000 dollar fun-o-rama of getting the place wired can't be completed if the road is impassable. and that would suck. but i am happy about the pound. and the job interview. it's not the one i reallllly wanted, but they called me first. which rocks! and it rocks that he told me that. it made my day. and i get to go shopping. it's a good things trifecta.

Monday, November 27, 2006

the concert was great. the greatness of being able to go see a group like the goo goo dolls without having to leave the state sort of got burried by the holiday. our backs did make it on the local news because frozen ass people waiting for a concert was the most exciting thing to put on the 6 o'clock news. atleast we weren't upstaged by gross murders, there are some things to love about bangor.

the holiday went well. there was a lot of eating...but strangely matt and i spent much of the weekend hungry and searching out food in my dad's house. it seemed like all of his food was sweet based: coffee cakes, cookies, quick breads. i'm not doing anything in particular, but i can't survive on sugar and i don't want to. that's the one real difference in my life, i'm getting very sugar averse. so we ended up eating out more than was strictly necessary to have normal food and i do show a wee gain today.

my sister in particular didn't seem convinced about my "nothing" doing, and i didn't have time to elaborate. it's not that i'm doing nothing and eating from dusk till dawn. i'm exercising as much as i can and i'm eating what i want. i don't know how to describe it but i'm just in this place where i'm ok with things. the angry fat girls had a similar post up today. sortof karma-esque, feeling good makes good things happen. that's where i am. things are just sort of falling into place.

i can probably link my little 2 pound gain to 1. not getting a lot of exercise, 2. having thanksgiving followed up by two meals of pizza (long story) and 3. eating three ice cream sandwiches yesterday. even though i'm living rule free, three ice cream sandwiches in one day was probably avoidable. but...i'm over it. i got a lot done yesterday between my ice cream breaks and it's not worth worrying about. being unburdened by guilt is my favorite thing to be thankful for this holiday season.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

i read the best article today about thanksgiving. a third grade teacher donned a pilgrim hat and walked around his classroom discovering his students pencils and gluesticks and claiming them as his own. it's a shame we adopted indian giver and not pilgrim thief. everyday imperialism.

so, there's some big eating holiday tomorrow. i can't really seem to hold that thought. i have all these travel thoughts in my head like packing and getting cash and remembering the concert tickets. i'm really going one day at a time here.

i'm not worried about eating my weight in turkey, i'm just looking forward to playing with my nieces and seeing some friends. i'm thinking of it more as an opportunity to eat food that i don't have to cook. we have some restaurant plans aswell. we've entered "all the good restaurants are closed" season and are really looking forward to some good meals out. food-a-pa-looza here we come!

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

someone got here by searching "big fat aggressive hos". i can't decide why that's so hilarious but it's been cracking me up all morning. maybe because this is so not the place to find big fat aggressive hos. i'm living ho free now a days.

i've been having all these english as a second language moments lately. every email i get has some kind of spelling error, grammar error, erroneous vocabulary. earlier this week we got an email saying the budget couldn't condone buying calendars. the budget has moral authority does it? the budget hopes we'll make better choices next time. language as powertrip is less effective when used incorrectly. it's wearing me out.

i've been really paranoid lately about my own writing. while making our video my boss and i had a five minute conversation about contractions which i really hope makes the bloopers reel. geeks gone wild! it would be like ghetto school house rock. i should probably place my apology for hypocrisy here...because i know there are spelling mistakes on this blog. and grammar mistakes. the worst thing you can do when you write your blog like you're drunk doodling on a cocktail napkin is criticize the writing of others. but look, i'm doing it anyway. i'm a rebel. without a clause. ha.

i wish i could remember all of the grammar i was supposed to learn in school because it would help me now with my fastidiousness. it's hard to pull off being pompous when you can't remember how to diagram a sentence. i should buy myself Eats, Shoots, and Leaves for christmas. then i could whine with authority.

i've been thinking about how i could relate this rant to dieting and i decided i totally could. no matter who you are and what you're doing, someone thinks they can do it better. dieting, speaking, writing. there's always a loudmouth telling you what you're doing wrong. thinking about that makes me feel a little bad that we spent hours mocking the girl who gave the budget feelings. only a little though. it was pretty funny.

Monday, November 20, 2006

one of the jobs i had high hopes of just posted another ad. a new one. sure, it's probably procedure but it's ego crushing. like with an anvil. from a tenth story window. bastards don't know what they're missing.

Friday, November 17, 2006

today, officially, twenty pounds down. i think i stressed it off during the making of our video this morning. it's still a reprehensible hoop to have to jump through, but it's better now that it's over. and also i lost 20 pounds. to celebrate the movie being over, we're going out to lunch. thai. and then i'm going to walk 1000 miles so i'll still have 176 tomorrow. a good a plan as any, i say.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

i keep thinking i have something to say...and then i don't. there are a slew of half assed saved drafts hanging around my blogger homepage just now. i don't have anything new to say about being fat today. my favorite skirt doesn't fit anymore. it's falling off. how many times have i posted that experience? you'd need like all the computers in the world to process the number.

the super good news is that my wrist hurts. probably from all the at home resume typing i have been doing. which is great because how better to start off a new job if indeed i get one than by getting carpal tunnel. it would be pretty cool.

i know this space has been pretty dead for awhile, i'm working on it. and then i realized that i'm almost at 20 pounds lost. and it only took a year. i couldn't be any more proud.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

another pound down this morning. which is great. except all i can focus on just now is the bag of utz chips in my cupboard at home. probably if i were at home i wouldn't even care that they were there (they exist in my house because they are friend in healthy oil and matt likes them and he needs snack foods) but knowing that they are there and i am at work is making me a little crazy. it's probably partly because we're slower than slow at work and i'm in between books.

and i can't think of a damn interesting thing to write about. except chips. pathetic doesn't encompass the situation.

Friday, November 10, 2006

i didn't actually write that on my performance appraisal, but i thought about it. what's the deal with doing self appraisals anyway. i think i do an excellent job, at all times, in all situations, and also i deserve a raise. who's going to say they spend most of their time on the internet waiting to get dooced. nobody, that's who.

but my boss likes me, so it's all good. dedication out of desperation is better than no dedication at all. there was a certain sense of irony about completing the stupid things. i got to check the "always completes projects on time" box, even though i almost forgot to do the evaluation and today's the due date. i got to say "demonstrates a positive attitude" when we've all spent that last three weeks bitching about the video. and unless they've bugged our desks no one will be the wiser. (wink)

and also, it's not a bank holiday. veteran's day is tomorrow. 11th hour, 11th day, 11th month. no one knows their history anymore.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

i have a ton of white donut sugar powder on my pants. and that's all i have to say about that.

there isn't so much going on. i thought i'd be all into morning exercise what with the time change, but it seems not. it's not like last winter at all, when i really enjoyed a morning jog. this year i'm still lazy from the summer. i'm still sleepier than is warranted with all these early sunrises. and also matt thinks i'm starving myself.

obviously, the attention, he does not pay. but he's not at my house every day and he doesn't see the dwindling supply of dove squares in my piggy jar. he does have a point that i'm eating less. but i've also felt like poo for weeks. i've had an ear infection since the industrial revolution it seems, and it doesn't show signs of waning. i'm getting really tired of it. and i'm getting tired of saying WHAT! every 2.4 seconds. it would be nicer to say pardon. but then no one would know what i meant. that's the trouble with words in the ever shifting context of our modern vernacular.

on that note. i'm going to go invite him to take me to lunch so he can see that a. i still like food and secondly that he should be more careful with his accusations. not eating? me. my house is a shrine to food. the very idea, tsk tsk.

Monday, November 06, 2006

those of you from the old days will remember that i've totally used that title before. i'm stealing it from myself. because the meaning resonates on a deeper plane and i like it, and i'm hungry. it's weird because i haven't felt hungry in ages and i'm kind of mad that i'm hungry now. like it's an inposition to feel hunger. weird.

can you tell by my cheery positive outlook that things are going well? i'm maintaining my 178 rather well. mostly i'm not thinking about it that much. except that randomly i know the calorie content of everything in my house. did you know three tiny pickles only have 5 calories? i do. i couldn't believe they were so lo-cal until i remembered THEY'RE CUCUMBERS! but i digress. i also know by heart that a teaspoon of sugar has 15 calories. which makes a cup of tea and three tiny pickles my 20 calorie snack of choice.

it's not that i'm counting calories, it just interests me. like why did i think sugar was the enemy (atkins who?) when a teaspoon only has 15 calories and it's not made of chemicals. so i bought a few bags of the demerera teaspoon sticks and i use one every time i make tea. and it's enough. if i'm caught without a stick handy and i pour what i think is a teaspoon of sugar, it's too much. i don't like the extra sugar anymore. soda is way too sweet. regular cookies, desserts, they're all too sweet for me. everything's changed lately, it's like planet of the body snatchers or something.

i'm kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. the shoe that stops me from feeling full with half portions and buys all the half price halloween candy just because it's there. i don't want to do that ever again. it's pathetic and greedy and i genuinely fear being like that again. i'm not that broke or disturbed that i need a whole bag of snickers at $1.50 to eat by myself.

all that stuff is a bore isn't it. calories this. binge potential that. somehow in the last two weeks i've been able to tune out from all of it. i'm really happy that i can have success (blech, that word makes me feel like an oprah clone) without regimenting my life interminably. i have great respect for regimenting and scheduling and planning and the people who do it and have success with it. i've had success with it. the idea that i can't contain myself without an arms list of rules makes me feel like a failure above and beyond what it does for my body. i can't live like that forever. i wouldn't want to. i hope i won't have to. i have everything crossed for that hope.

that woman on the radio with the horns, delilah, was playing christmas music on saturday night. horrors never do cease. not to say that i listen to her as a rule. but i was driving and all of my cds sucked and i was left with the radio. so i wasn't really listening to her but flipping and there was accapella silver bells on 92.5. it's just not ok. it's not even close to december. living in the world makes me hate the holidays. what's to celebrate about buying on credit and feeding the capitalist machine? but maybe i'm just pissed that the mall is full of morons taking all the good spots.

Friday, November 03, 2006

you know your hair needs help when your hairdresser phones your place of work while she has laringitis because she's been thinking about your hair and something must be done. you know you look like someone's hapless aunt when you get that call. the aunt with the cat sweatshirts who buys those collectible dolls from the home shopping channel. so tomorrow, if i don't flake and forget, i will be getting a "choppier, funkier" do. the adjective that would best describe my hair right now would be wide. maybe attractivity challenged.

for honesty's sake, and posterity, i've had two milky ways and one m&m peanut pack. but i feel like that shouldn't count because it has peanuts. which have protein. which you need to live. but maybe i'm over thinking it. if you got a call from your stylist and she couldn't live a moment longer knowing your hair existed you'd eat the milky ways too. don't tell me you wouldn't.

we finished watching the last of big love. that's a fascinating show. i couldn't stop watching it. and now i have to wait like a whole year for season two to be on dvd. i'm genuinely worried about what will happen after they get outed. will home plus survive? will ben get his virginity back? it plucks at the heart strings. but the best scene was after the barbecue for betty when they have $2000 in lobsters hanging around. and they put them in tupperware. for me, in maine, it was hilarious. i just don't have words for how perfect that detail was.

it makes me nervous about the rest of the details though. like how much truth is there in the rest of the stories. my boss and all my co-workers grew up catholic. i'm surrounded by recovering catholics. when you grow up catholic you live life with the reasonable assumption that that's as crazy as it gets. we bond over our spiritual whoopsies. my best friend lied to the priest in her first confession because she couldn't think of anything she did wrong. i lied about giving my first confession because those booths are f-ing scary when you're six. better to lie and take the body and blood of christ at your first communion in sin than admit the priests freak you out.

while you were sleeping is one of my favorite movies because of the church scene. and the grandmother says she misses the mass in latin, it was nicer when you didn't know that they were saying. it's just so true. what weirds me out is how hollywood can so perfectly capture how i feel about catholicism, how close to reality is big love. i'm really torn about it. on the one hand the compound women don't seem to have many choices and that sucks as a way of life. but on the other hand the people where i live have kids with any number of spouses/neighbors/distant relatives, ongoing open relationships, polyamory whatever. and uhh...no one cares. but it seems to be a big huge deal on the show. a business make or break, a secret to keep. i don't get it.

all these thoughts because i can't get the lobster/tupperware scene out of my head. and i went back up a pound and it seems better not to dwell on that. why not chit chat about polygamy and religions and get every one mad at me. better than talking about my desk drawer full of tiny milkyways. no one has to know about that. except GOD. ha.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

when we were still training our last new recruit, the one who weighs nothing and wants to lose and boasts of anorexia, well she said a lot of other crazy things. one being she'd never heard of haagen dasz. is life even worth living without that information, doubtful. she also said she saw me eating yogurt all week and that's why i was losing weight. maybe it's the way she said it, the certainty of her own logic that i found so amusing. it was like this paul reiser stand-up bit from years ago when he's talking about if you eat cottage cheese and half a grapefruit for lunch you're likely to disappear altogether by dinner.

apparently it didn't occur to her that i could eat yogurt during the day and go home and eat a vat of the mysterious haagen dasz and maybe i wouldn't lose weight. she really thought yogurt was the key. if only it were that simple. flick a switch, eat yogurt, life on course. that would rock. it's a process. losing weight, finding a new job where you don't have to make videos, growing your hair out of it's don king stage. everything is a process.

i've stopped writing about the reasons my job sucks and all the resumes i've been sending out because it sucks. the business is still in mind but that process is stalled beyond all reasonable stallage so finding acceptable employment is the top priority. if i work on it like i work on this health kick/weightloss thing eventually things will improve. i have to believe that. i also have to believe that it will work in two weeks or as soon as they fire me for not doing this video. i have lots of hope. and desperation. and perseverance. but mostly hope. what's the point of going on at all if you don't believe things will get better? so i believe that i will find a new job that i like and i will keep losing pounds here and there and that eventually we will have power and water and heat at the apartment. as soon as the hydro fixes all the damn poles maybe they'll get to hooking us up. and also that that lady won't file a claim and i won't have to sell my soul for liability coverage.